A question of height

In order to recognise environmental changes like these in good time, researchers are now relying on more intensive environmental monitoring. This includes a butterfly monitoring programme in which thousands of volunteers in countries like the UK, the Netherlands and Germany count and record butterflies using the same method. The Europe-wide butterfly-monitoring programme is being coordinated by Butterfly Conservation Europe (BCE, www.bc-europe.org). In Germany the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) has taken on the coordination of the German butterfly-monitoring programme (Tagfalter-Monitoring Deutschland, TMD). "Systematic records, like the ones kept for the Large Blue in England, show the potential offered by data that has been recorded systematically over the long term. The first four years of the German butterfly-monitoring programme have been very successful. The active participation of around 600 volunteers makes us optimistic that we will be able to make many more statements about a large number of species and large areas in a few years' time," says Elisabeth Kühn, co-author of the UFZ's contribution to Science. In the long term, the TMD data will form an important basis for realistic modelling, e.g. to show the impacts of climate and land use change on butterfly communities. This will provide an opportunity to make forecasts.

The Large Blue butterfly has been included in the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator, which provides information about the ecological status of meadows and pastures by recording typical butterflies. If monitoring can be firmly established as an early-warning system in the long term, there will be a greater chance of preventing species and populations from disappearing entirely, following the British example – ideally before they die out and have to be reintroduced. The UFZ authors therefore highlight the significance of the British study for insect conservation in general: many specialist species, which are frequently endangered, can be conserved only with the help of good ecological data and countryside management which has been derived from it – usually at landscape level.

More information: PD Dr. Josef Settele, Elisabeth Kühn Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) during vacation only via E-mail: Josef.Settele at ufz.de http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=817 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=10387 or via Tilo Arnhold, André Künzelmann (UFZ press department) Telefon: 0341-235-1269, -1632 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=12869

Publications:

Josef Settele and Elisabeth Kühn (2009):
Insect Conservation.
Science 325, 41-42.

J. A. Thomas, D. J. Simcox, and R. T. Clarke (2009):
Successful Conservation of a Threatened Maculinea Butterfly.
Science 325, xx-xx
Science Express Reports. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175726
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1175726